Researchers work to counter a new class of coffee shop hackers
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Re: Researchers work to counter a new class of coffee shop hackers
#2"typed by intercepting side-channel signals produced by the first laptop’s keyboard software, which had been modified to make the characters easier to identify."
So they modified the keyboard to make it easy to detect what was typed? Not saying side-channel isn't a issue, but that's kinda silly :)
Re: Researchers work to counter a new class of coffee shop hackers
#3The title needs changed, as the article doesn't actually address wifi hacking.
Re: Researchers work to counter a new class of coffee shop hackers
#4Someone has been reading too much Neal Stephenson...
Re: Researchers work to counter a new class of coffee shop hackers
#5The title needs changed, as the article doesn't actually address wifi hacking.
Also there doesn't seem to be anything that is actually "countering" anything at the moment
Re: Researchers work to counter a new class of coffee shop hackers
#6The title needs changed, as the article doesn't actually address wifi hacking.
Also there doesn't seem to be anything that is actually "countering" anything at the moment
I'm surprised the article doesn't suggest increasing side-channel noise as a crude interim counter.
Certainly it would be a big power drain, but for the security conscious it sounds like a reasonably easy short-term solution. That, and not accessing sensitive data in public, of course.
Re: Researchers work to counter a new class of coffee shop hackers
#7Do Android keyboards play the same sound for all keys? I know that the space key has a very different sound. I wonder if sonic differences not perceptible to the human ear are already being used to intercept key presses using only a microphone or if someone already investigated it.
Re: Researchers work to counter a new class of coffee shop hackers
#8The title needs changed, as the article doesn't actually address wifi hacking.
Thanks, we changed it to the original article title.
Re: Researchers work to counter a new class of coffee shop hackers
#9The information about side channel attacks is really interesting, and useful to defend against real attackers. But there are no coffee shop hackers. Nobody is sitting at Starbucks trying to break into your Facebook account or glean the secrets of the bake sale you're organizing next week.
It would be really nice if reporting news didn't constantly require praying on the unfounded fears people have of things they don't understand.
Re: Researchers work to counter a new class of coffee shop hackers
#10The information about side channel attacks is really interesting, and useful to defend against real attackers. But there are no coffee shop hackers. Nobody is sitting at Starbucks trying to break into your Facebook account or glean the secrets of the bake sale you're organizing next week. It would be really nice if reporting news didn't constantly require praying on the unfounded fears people have of things they don'…
Are you sure about that? Many people log into their bank accounts while online at coffee shops. A passive attacker could tape an old android phone to the bottom of a table, with a custom sniffing program running in the background.
It sounds like a stretch now, but could become a more common threat if some code is released to the script kiddies.